Unionized nurses at Allegheny General Hospital spent more than two decades successfully fighting for caps on their number of assigned patients. The young UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital nurses unions hope to secure them in their first contracts.
When the Allegheny General Hospital union formed in 1999, “nobody had staffing standards in the state,” said Myra Taylor, a nurse at the hospital and board member of Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania.
The situation is different these days. Nurses unions at Allegheny General Hospital and West Penn Hospital — Southwestern Pennsylvania’s largest labor and delivery center after Magee — have gotten some form of workload limits in their contracts since 2021.
About six weeks into contract talks with UPMC, some 900 registered nurses and advanced practitioners are entering what could be the defining clash of their inaugural collective bargaining agreement. Both sets of nurses voted to unionize last year and are pursuing separate contracts with similar foundations.
The nurses held a news conference Tuesday morning at Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood to advocate for their staffing proposal and emphasize its positive impact on patient care. A bargaining session at the site followed.
Several nurses spoke of being stretched too thin to provide adequate developmental support to babies, talk patients through their care options or answer call buttons in a timely manner.
“Beyond the basic monitoring and treatment, we want to attend to your emotional well-being and quality of life,” said Ronni Getz, a certified nurse midwife at Magee.
Mandatory patient-to-nurse ratios sought by the union are based on recommendations from professional organizations such as the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. West Penn uses guidelines from this group, which vary by unit and patient acuity. For instance, the standards say nurses shouldn’t be assigned more than one woman in active labor at once.
Mariah Park, a nurse in Magee’s labor and delivery unit, said she’s often tending to two women giving birth at once.
“We want to offer that same one-on-one birthing care for the rest of the city,” Park said.
The union claims Magee is broadly understaffed when compared with recommendations from professional groups.
In a statement Monday, UPMC rejected ratios as rigid and out of step with clinical realities. The health care giant also argued ratios would do nothing to address an industrywide shortage of nurses. None of its hospitals in the region have adopted this system.
Tuesday’s bargaining session isn’t expected to yield any breakthroughs. The anticipated eight-hour meeting will likely be dominated by the union outlining its unit-by-unit staffing proposal with little feedback from UPMC until next time. The sides have met several times a month since bargaining started in January.
Magee nurses are also demanding better pay and longer parental leave.
Whatever the contract brings, it’s not yet clear whether it will apply to nurses and consultants at the hospital’s lactation center. The union says they’re covered by last year’s vote to organize; UPMC contests this.
“We are determined to be in the union and a part of negotiations,” said Celia Emmons, one of the lactation consultants in limbo.